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Remix Culture
Remix culture is a culture that facilitates or promotes the creation of a product using ideas or innovations produced by another party. Remix culture includes artistic mediums such as folk music (music attributed to a people rather than a particular author), graffiti, found art, and musical sampling. Open source software such as Linux and Firefox can be considered remixed works, as they are constantly updated and revised by programmers around the world. While remixing has drawn criticism from recording agencies, politicians and some artists, it has gained support from many other artists, social scientists and technology activists. Lawrence Lessig, a professor of law at Stanford, promoted remix culture as a desirable social facet in his book Remix. History In the most basic sense, remix culture has existed ever since the first person innovated the work of someone else. However, only in recent history has this concept been thought of as remixing. Folklore -- including folk tales, folk songs and folk art -- is an example of a remixed art form. Folklore existed long before copyright law could enforce ownership of intellectual property, and in most cases, works of folklore are not attributed to any author. In the modern day, many works of folklore have been remixed and capitalized upon by professional artists and musicians. Graffiti is an example of remixed art, in which public and private spaces are decorated or modified by artists. Graffiti is seen as little more than defacement by its detractors, and those who create graffiti face a risk of legal repercussion. Nonetheless, legal risk has failed to prevent the professionalization of graffiti, and certain individuals such as Banksy have developed large public followings and recognition from legitmate art communities. In 1948, French composer Pierre Schaeffer developed a musical style known as musique concrete, in which natural sounds and other recordings are modified and recompiled to form a new composition. The style effectively created sampling, a technique that gained new popularity in the 60s and 70s with artists such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. In the early 90s, the technique grew once more with early hip hop artists, who arranged clips from disco, funk and soul records into beats to be rapped over. Sampling is still widely used today by artists from musical genres as varied as electronica, rock and pop. Legality In most cases, artists that remix the works of others cannot sell their creations without the express permission of the original works' creators. In some cases, artists have been prevented from performing or displaying their remixed works in any capacity. This has proven to be an obstacle for many musicians in hip hop or other genres that heavily rely on sampling and remixing. The Vanilla Ice song, "Ice Ice Baby," blatantly sampled Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure." Even though Vanilla Ice modified the rhythym of the bassline, he was forced to settle with Queen and Bowie out of court. It is possible, however, that the controversy only served to increase the song's popularity. As remixing has grown in popularity, some lawyers have dedicated their practice entirely to clearing samples for legal use. Rapper and producer Kanye West, known for his prominent sampling of popular songs, has thus far avoided major legal repercussion by working with sample lawyers on a regular basis. A new type of copyright known as Creative Commons seeks to give artists an alternative to standard intellectual property protection. Under Creative Commons, artists can license their work for remix while still maintaining some control over sales rights, attribution, etc.